Fifty Laws defining the underlying structure of Reality

Murphy’s Law – If it can go wrong, it will.
Finagle’s Law – Whatever can go wrong will do so at the worst possible moment.
O’Toole’s Corollary – Murphy was an optimist.
Sod’s Law – British version: the toast lands butter-side down.
Cole’s Law – Thinly sliced cabbage in mayonnaise.
Cheops’ Law – No project is ever on time or on budget (even pyramids).
Parkinson’s Law – Work expands to fill the time—and budget—available.
Peter Principle – People rise to their level of incompetence.
Dilbert Principle – Incompetent workers get promoted to management to minimize damage.
Hofstadter’s Law – “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter’s Law into account.”

Muphry’s Law – Any text criticizing proofreading will contain its own errors.
Law of Selective Gravity – Dropped toast targets the carpet, butter-side down.
Law of Mechanical Repair – When both hands are greasy, your nose will itch.
Law of the Lost Screw – Small parts roll to the least accessible corner.
Zymurgy’s First Law – Opening a can of worms always requires a bigger can to re-can them.
Skinner’s Constant – Multiply your homework answer by this secret factor to get the correct one (only your professor knows it).
First Law of Holes – If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Segal’s Law – A person with one watch knows the time; a person with two is never sure.
Chekhov’s Gun (Meta-Law) – If a gun appears in act I, it must go off in act III (storytelling’s Murphy).
Sturgeon’s Law – “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy – Those devoted to the organization itself eventually run it—and no one else can stop them.
Putt’s Law – Technologists understand what they don’t manage; managers manage what they don’t understand.
Heller’s Law – The first myth of management is that it exists.
Sayre’s Law – Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.
Ninety-Ninety Rule (Cargill) – The first 90 % of the code takes 90 % of the time; the last 10 % takes the other 90 %.
Kranzberg’s First Law – “Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.” (A bureaucrat’s Rorschach test.)
Goodhart’s Law – When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure—and everyone games it.
Brandolini’s Law (Bullshit Asymmetry) – It takes an order of magnitude more energy to refute nonsense than to create it.
Parkinson’s Law of Triviality (Bike-Shed Effect) – Time spent on an agenda item is inversely proportional to its cost/importance.
Westheimer’s Rule – To estimate project time, take your best estimate, multiply by two, and change the unit to the next largest (days → weeks, etc.).

Godwin’s Law – As an online discussion grows, the probability of a Nazi comparison approaches 1.
Poe’s Law – Without a smiley or obvious parody marker, it’s impossible to create a satire that isn’t mistaken for the real thing.
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines – If a headline ends with a question mark, the answer is “No.”
Cunningham’s Law – The fastest way to get the right answer online is to post the wrong one.
Streisand Effect – Attempting to hide information guarantees it spreads further.
Skitt’s Law – Any post pointing out another’s error will itself contain an error.
Rule 34 – If it exists, there is adult content of it (no exceptions).
Pommer’s Law – A person who does not understand the Internet is doomed to misunderstand it—and you in the process.
Hitchens’s Razor – That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Hanlon’s Razor – Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Linus’s Law – “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” (Unless they’re your bugs.)
Wirth’s Law – Software slows faster than hardware speeds up.
Moore’s Second Law (aka “Rock’s Law”) – The cost of a chip-fab line doubles about every four years—hardware’s revenge on Moore.
Tesler’s Law (Conservation of Complexity) – Every app has a minimum complexity; the only choice is whether the user or developer bears it.
Amdahl’s Law (Comic Version) – The part you can’t parallel-ize is always the part your boss asks about.
Metcalfe’s Law (Social Edition) – Network value ∝ n²—until everyone is yelling “unsubscribe.”
Postel’s Law (Robustness Principle) – Be conservative in what you send, liberal in what you accept—Great-Aunt Email still thanks you.
Gall’s Law – A working complex system evolved from a simple one that worked; a system designed complex never works.
LeBlanc’s Law – Later = earlier + one week—because “later” is the easiest date to hit.
Weinberg’s Second Law – If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.

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